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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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Not sure I agree. I can imagine a scenario where it would be sensible to describe A as having gotten B drunk, or drugged them with alcohol. An obvious example would be A adding some more potent alcohol to B's drink without B's knowledge or consent.

North by Northwest features a good example of what I would describe as the minimum necessary for me to say A(really A1, A2, and A3) has gotten B drunk. I would not describe someone making strong cocktails as having gotten the other party drunk. Not when martinis are often made with often far less less than a splash of Vermouth everywhere.

I don't agree. To more fully lay out a theory of when I think it's appropriate to say something like "A got B drunk" I think of A taking some action that overcomes B's own intentions about how drunk to get to cause B to become much more intoxicated than they intended. The scene in North by Northwest you link obviously involves overcoming someone's intentions by force but I think it can also be done by fraud. Sure, if your martini has an extra shot worth of Vermouth in it or whatever I wouldn't call that enough by itself. But I think spiking an otherwise non-alcoholic drink or mixing less alcoholic drinks (like beer) with more alcoholic ones (like whiskey) without the knowledge or consent of the subject can rise to a similar level.

That may be true once you have experience with alcohol, but I think you overestimate the ability of people with less experience to notice. Also, with strong enough alcohol it can easily be too late by the time you've actually tasted it if you don't handle liquor well. I'm quite a bit bigger than the size of the median twelve year old and a single sip of 190-proof Everclear from a flask a friend handed me with no more explanation than "Try this." was more than enough to knock me out within ten minutes. Fortunately it was in company that proved trustworthy (at least, I have no reason to suspect anything untoward happened after I passed out on the couch), but that experience was a bit of a wakeup call for the risks involved.

"He gave her an alcoholic beverage and she, knowing it was an alcoholic beverage, took it and drank it" is not "he got her drunk. She's responsible for her own decisions.

"He gave her an alcoholic beverage and she, knowing it was an alcoholic beverage, took it and drank it." Sure, yes. That's one way to tell the story.

That's about the only way to tell the story that doesn't lead to "Two similarly-situated peers had sex, and we can only tell which one raped the other by the sex of those involved".

Another way to tell it is: "At a party, a senior looking for a good time mixed something really strong with lots of sugar and fruit juice and gave it to a sheltered freshman, the daughter of strict immigrant parents. She, knowing it was an alcoholic beverage but too inexperienced to recognize its strength or predict its effects, took it and drank it. An hour later, her senses came into focus, and she realized she was on a bed with the senior on top of her and his hand in her underwear."

That framing leaves out a lot. Particularly, how was she behaving during that hour. Would she have appeared to all and sundry (including the senior) to have been a willing participant, or would she have clearly been a stumbling confused drunk? Because I'm only talking about the first scenario.

It also implies malign intent to the senior that I don't know was actually there. Did he mix a strong drink for this girl, knowing she couldn't tolerate it, intending to exploit that to get into her pants? Or did he just see an attractive girl and bring her a drink because, you know, that's a great way to introduce yourself.

When someone describes his actions as, "Dude got her drunk," you know what that means and you know it describes ungentlemanly, exploitative behavior that does in fact happen, out there in reality, under that sky there.

I do not "know what that means". I know what the person making that claim wants me to think, but I don't know if it's true.